


if we survive

by mr_bonez



Category: NCIS
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Attempted Murder, Blood and Injury, Canon-Typical Violence, Case Fic, Everyone Needs A Hug, F/M, Fire, Implied Relationships, Injured Ziva David, Minor Character Death, Murder, Not Quite Canon but Not Quite Not, POV Alternating, POV Anthony DiNozzo, POV Jethro Gibbs, POV Timothy McGee, POV Ziva David, Protectiveness, Revenge, Secrets, Tim-centric, Unrequited Crush, Worry, Ziva-centric
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-01
Updated: 2021-02-01
Packaged: 2021-03-17 00:47:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,241
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29091516
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mr_bonez/pseuds/mr_bonez
Summary: And he can't go back. And she can't go back.And she's not telling him anything, and he left his phone so he can't call Gibbs, and they must think they're dead, and he didn't tell anyone what he was doing, and—A hand touched his wrist, dragging Tim's attention to the owner's disheveled face. Ziva did not speak. She had nothing to say. But Tim settled down a little and the rambling of his brain slowly filtered out, so she didn't have to speak and he wouldn't ask her to.He breathed and leaned back against the wall."Ziva," he whispered out. She looked to him and he met her eyes. "If we survive, don't ever do that again."orZiva and Tim go missing.
Relationships: Anthony DiNozzo & Abby Sciuto, Anthony DiNozzo & Jethro Gibbs, Anthony DiNozzo & Timothy McGee, Anthony DiNozzo/Timothy McGee, Ducky Mallard & Abby Sciuto, Ducky Mallard & Jimmy Palmer, Jethro Gibbs & Abby Sciuto, Jethro Gibbs & Ducky Mallard, Jethro Gibbs & Jimmy Palmer, Jethro Gibbs & Timothy McGee, Timothy McGee & Abby Sciuto, Ziva David & Abby Sciuto, Ziva David & Anthony DiNozzo, Ziva David & Jethro Gibbs, Ziva David & Timothy McGee, Ziva David/Anthony DiNozzo, Ziva David/Timothy McGee
Comments: 4
Kudos: 12





	1. Rule 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Three dead, two missing. One hacker, one ex-assassin. Tony doesn't want to think of the possibilities.
> 
> (prologue)

prologue: rule 3  
"never be unreachable."

  
**MCGEE**

Tim's hands were sweaty. Not dripping, but his keys slipped as he tried to jam them into the ignition and that was time he _could not_ waste. Time taken to wipe the sweat from his palms was time they could get to Ziva. Time he could _lose_ her. Time— The key slipped into the hole and the car went speeding down the road. Between the time the car started and the car stopped, Tim's brain ran a mile per minute. He lost track, focused on his one and only goal at the moment.

By the time he had a moment to calm his brain, his thoughts had blended together and settled down onto one word:

Ziva.

His car stuttered and halted about a block from Ziva's home, but he didn't stop with it. Let the people ask questions, let the people worry when they saw his car. Time spend worrying was time lost. Time spent explaining was time lost. This was more important. He would explain when she was _safe_. The vehicle was abandoned at the side of the road, door wide open and the gas tank empty. 

He didn't need the key, so he left it in the ignition. No one would get anywhere with a car out of gas, so he left the door open. If he needed the key or cared for his car, any semblance of that knowledge slipped from his mind. 

It didn't matter. 

It didn't matter.

He was bolting down the street, converse slapping against concrete, when he realized his phone was abandoned in the car as well. _Fuck!_ He worried his lip with his teeth, but kept running. 

Any other time, he would've turned around and ran back to grab his phone. Rule 3: Never be unreachable. He knew better than to disobey one of Gibbs' rules—especially when he was disappearing in the middle of the night and well aware that the night wouldn't end in either his or Ziva's homes—but he didn't know how much time he had left to get to her, if he had any at all. The wrath of Gibbs would fade when he explained.

(...He hoped.)

* * *

**TONY**

Tim was late.

He wouldn't be too concerned for that, but Ziva was also late.

Ziva was never late.

Tony's fingers twitched, he glanced at the clock. Early. Traffic? No, he passed by the route where both of them would drive to work from and it was clear as can be (not that it would've stopped Ziva). Car crash? Gibbs would've learned of that if it hurt anyone—especially his team—and the boss was sitting at his desk as stony as ever. He glanced at his computer for a second, looked away, and then looked right back, typing up the local news' website.

He scanned the articles, eyes searching for keywords like 'agent' and the places where Ziva and Tim lived. When he finally saw it, the phone rang. A fire. Engulfed an entire house, arson. Three bodies burnt to a crisp, broken back door—they'd gone in guns blazing. Looking for someone. Abandoned car, cellphone found inside. 

Tim's number.

He looked at the remnants of the house, at the charred wallpaper that whispered familiarity, at the car out front, at the neighborhood. Ziva's house. His hands shook. One person missing, phone call from a number— _Ziva's number_ —and apartment abandoned. Linked. 

Gibbs ended his call. He lifted his head and opened his mouth to speak, blankly, hiding the panic surely flooding his mind. Tony beat him to it. "Tim and Ziva are missing." Gibbs met his eyes and nodded slowly. Suspicously. He wanted to spout something to explain himself, he didn't want Gibbs to think he had something to do with this, something to explain. He didn't. The boss spoke instead.

"We're heading to Ziva's house then McGee's. Get your things, we'll meet up with the officers we'll be working with when we get there." Tony's head whirled. He didn't _want_ to work with other officers, he wanted to work with his Assassin and McGeek. No sassy quip came up his throat, even with thoughts of all the movies about missing people he'd ever watched racing through his head. Gone Girl. He shuts his eyes.

He hopes this doesn't end like Gone Girl. His mind pulls parallels between Amy and Ziva, Nick and Tim. He doesn't like the parallels, he doesn't want to think of Ziva as the villain, but his mind keeps popping up reminders of the blood she spilled on her hands in Mossad, her relation to Ari, every violent act she'd ever done, deserved or not. She was his Assassin, but somehow the thought didn't give him much comfort.

He hoped this was a misunderstanding.

He hoped a lot.


	2. Rule 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony knows too much and Tim knows too little.

chapter one: rule 8  
"never take anything for granted."

**TONY**

Tony didn't know how they managed to bypass the usual rules - the ones that would've pulled him and Gibbs to the sidelines and let worries run through their brains as incompetent investigators did work that they should've been doing. (He knew they weren't incompetent. They worked in NCIS, for God's sake. But he would be furious and every mistake would shine too clearly in his eyes.) He settled on the fact that they got there first, and silently thanked Gibbs for drilling speed into his brain.

They traveled to the car momentarily before heading to the proper crime scene. He snapped photos, Gibbs collected evidence, and he marveled at his boss' stoic face. It crossed his mind that possibly he didn't care. He shook his head and decided instead that he had more faith in Tim and Ziva than he did. He trusted they were safe, so Tony did too. (His mind reminded him of every time Ziva had been tricked - of partners turned suspects, of Saleem and her kidnapping and torture, of her blind trust in Ari when they had first met, of her father, of Mossad. Ziva was the strongest person he knew, but she could get in… situations. He hoped Tim could counteract that. He hoped. He hoped.)

When they reached Ziva's home, his hand twitched. Ducky and Palmer were already at the scene, waiting all too peacefully by three bodies in the wreckage of a home burnt down. His heart rammed against his ribcage, yanking and tugging at his bones in a sick attempt to set itself free, constricting his chest and his plague-weakened lungs and screaming in his head. _Not Tim, not Ziva, no._ Stepping under the police tape, he tried to act as though his heart thumped a normal rhythm, as though his lungs weren't stuck in what felt like an eternal inhale. The disguise worked to the press. Not Ducky, though he was not displeased with that fact when he spoke.

"None of these bodies belong to Ziva and Tim, dear Tony."

He kept rambling, but Tony didn't listen. He exhaled. He breathed. His heart faltered in its persistent banging, settling to a gentle beat as the moments passed. _Oh thank God._ With his worries (mostly) calmed, he took a moment to look around at the wreckage and then the worry came seeping back in.

The back door of the house was missing from the frame, burnt on the floor in a position that suggested it had been kicked in, likely by one of the three corpses on the floor. His gaze dragged to where he remembered Ziva's bedroom sat and saw the door looking relatively.. unburnt. As if moved by an instinctual force, Tony turned to the door and approached it, ignoring Gibbs' confused, "Dinozzo?" He touched the handle, hand gloved. A part of him told him to take off his glove - he wanted to touch it, touch a familiar thing in this hellscape. He did not. He expected the door to be locked and possibly barricaded - it always was. He knew that - but he twisted the handle anyways.

The door creaked open. 

Fear rattled in his bones.

"Boss..?" Tony turned to Gibbs, keeping his hand on the door and holding it only open a crack. From his boss' expression, he could tell that his panic showed on his face, but that wasn't important. He gestured to the door, open, unlocked, with his finger, eyes wide and worried. "This is supposed to be locked."

* * *

**TIM**

Where were they? Ziva trudged ahead of him, silent, leading the way through the woods behind her home. How long had they been walking? Did they even go far at all? He swore he could still hear the crackling of fire, the screams of their attackers dying in their throats, the shattering of glass and Ziva's sharp bite of pain as she pierced her palms on the shards. He had a feeling that his mind was only echoing, but when he got a glimpse of his companion's face, he wasn't sure if the last one was just in his head. Red dripped down her palms, staining her skin and seeping through the cloth he'd ripped from his jacket and tied around the wound.

Between the phone call and the fire, Tim's mind blurred as adrenaline that had since entirely worn off pumped through his veins. He recalled bits and pieces. Arriving at Ziva's house. The argument. Their attackers breaking down the back door. Ziva grabbing his hand and shattering the window pane, pushing him forwards and leaping through after him, ignoring the way glass shoved through her palm completely, outside of a quick inhale and a sound. A sound that echoed in his mind since the moment she made it. 

He remembered how she lit the house ablaze with practiced clarity. How she promised she would make it up to him, grabbed his hand, and darting into the woods to the melody of the trapped's howling screams. 

(He looked at his hand, at the blood that was not his smeared on his skin, and remembered her very un-Ziva-like apology for it.)

At some point, they arrived at a cabin. Wooden, empty, the middle of no where. He should've been paying attention, but he missed the route entirely. He did not miss her clenched fist (and the accompanying inhale), nor the murmured, "Bayit…" It tickled the part of his brain that had learned bits and pieces of Hebrew that she'd spoken and that he'd either researched or she'd explained. He opened his mouth and impulsively echoed her, attempting to understand it on his own and to recall the meaning of a word he was sure he'd heard before. He almost missed the look on her face. Confusion, surprise. A thin layer of soft happiness lie overtop. He smiled, masking the confusion that yearned to outwardly mimic hers.

What did he say?

It clicked when he stepped inside and got a grasp of the oddly warm feeling of the place in spite of the few objects inside and abandoned feel. It sent a comforting chill down Tim's spine. Ziva moved through the cabin with a familiarity that didn't appear in her own home, stoking the fire and moving to a room he assumed was the bathroom and had medical supplies. He shut the door behind himself and moved into the place, exploring while Ziva busied herself with (what she confirmed to be) a medkit behind closed doors until he happened upon a bedroom.

The bed was large, fit for two people, and if they were staying they would have to share. A quilt lay overtop with two single pillows. Cold. He could tell the bed was cold in the nights and that was the purpose of the fire, wasn't it? Not for light since there was plenty of windows and no need for light in the night. Warmth. The cabin was small enough for the fire to extend its grace throughout the house and he settled on top of the quilt, kicking off his shoes just in case Ziva had some rule he didn't know of.

He didn't bother to lay back on the pillows, stretching himself out across horizontally. After a few minutes, Ziva joined him, hands bandaged and cloth set on a night stand. They laid beside one another, not touching, not speaking. They thought their own thoughts and Tim thought _hard._

He sat up and started pacing, trying to make his thoughts flow smoother and less janky as they rattled about his head, eventually giving up and moving beside a wall because it suddenly felt too intrusive to lay back down.

Everything that had happened had happened in under 24 hours and Ziva had explained nothing. Tony and Gibbs likely thought they were dead and- And he can't go back. And she can't go back. And she's not telling him anything, and he left his phone so he can't call Gibbs, and they must think they're dead, and he didn't tell anyone what he was doing, and— A hand touched his wrist, dragging Tim's attention to the owner's disheveled face. Ziva did not speak. She had nothing to say. But Tim settled down a little and the rambling of his brain slowly filtered out, so she didn't have to speak and he wouldn't ask her to.

He breathed and leaned back against the wall. "Ziva," he whispered out. She looked at him and he met her eyes with a solemnness that made something in her visibly hitch. 

"If we survive, don't ever do that again." 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i wrote this during class let me out


End file.
